


Kinetic

by FireFleshAndBlood



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Alien Biology, Dubious Consent, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Slavery, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 14:22:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14696019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireFleshAndBlood/pseuds/FireFleshAndBlood
Summary: Fifteen years after Zim disappeared from the face of the planet with no explanation, Dib is struggling to find a purpose to his life beyond the one that Zim took with him when he left. But when the earth is destroyed by the Irken armada, Dib is captured and he meets his old enemy again. Unfortunately for Dib, Zim has learned a few new tricks and grown a few more rows of teeth...and a burning desire for revenge.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is what I call 'an oldie but goodie'. I don't think I ever released this fanfic in the way I wanted to originally and with the Zim movie hovering like Schrödinger's cat at the moment, I thought why not do the last tiny bit of editing and release this beast to the wild? This was supposed to be a massive epic but at the moment, the first story arc is all that's complete. Needless to say, if you want to see this thing finished in a big way, you'll have to let me know. This is dark, depressing and a bit gruesome. I consider it a prototype of what my style would later develop into, so keep that in mind. In any event, enjoy!

Kinetic Chapter 1: Shatter  
  
And if you are listening,  
Please tell us about the time,  
Where and when we exist,  
No more.  
  
For when you go,  
We go with you,  
Via wormholes.

 

Kinetic – Arcturus

 

 

Like a dream the last week played before Dib's eyes. He had been waking up beside his girlfriend Rachel just about every day of the past month. It had been dark in her spacious apartment and she was sitting beside him on the recently crumpled bed. It was the last time they would ever be intimate, although he had thought that this had been a long time coming.

 

“You’re so cold Dib,” she said with a weak smile, “it’s like the infinite blackness of space has invaded your heart.”

 

He nodded his head, “Maybe you’re right. There’s always been some kind of invasion going on. Ever since I was a kid.”

 

She sighed worriedly, “You say the weirdest things. Call me if you need someone to talk to. We may be over, but you could say,” she smiled, “I feel some kind of sisterly devotion for such a hopeless cause.”

 

She had given him that concerned look of hers, “you’re going to be ok though, right?”

 

He had nodded slowly, “Yeah. Everything will be ok.”

 

Rachel's hand had left his shoulder at that instance, never to be felt again. He had never called her that day or any other and never would.

 

The saddest part was that he didn’t really care either way.

 

~*~

 

Gaz was playing Gameslave at the house. She was still living at home while she went to art school.

 

“Hey idiot,” she said, barely looking up. “I heard Angela dumped you.”

 

“Rachel,” Dib said, sitting at the family table with his face buried in his arms.

 

“Oh. A new one, huh,” she said, “So since you're my annoying brother I'm contractually obligated to ask...are you suicidal?”

 

“I don't think so,” he shrugged.

 

Gaz uncharacteristically set down her Gameslave. “Dib, you’re really starting to worry me. You’re like…the most distant person on the planet. And that’s really something coming from me.”

 

She grumbled irritably when he didn’t respond, “Do you enjoy living your life like a fucking robot?”

 

He stared at her blankly, “Gaz, there’s nothing wrong with me. I wish you and Dad would give it a rest. I’m fine. I have a job. I had a girlfriend. I’m just…a little unmotivated sometimes.”

 

She glowered and picked up her game, “Whatever. It’s your stupid life.”

 

It was in his opinion, a very stupid life indeed. In his field he was a top scientist but that didn’t stop his peers from chuckling to themselves as he walked by. His work at the lab was unconventional; he had direct contact with SETI, parapsychologists and numerous research labs across the United States that had anything to do with extraterrestrial life. Like thousands of other people across the globe, he was searching for signs that something else was out there in the stars. Unlike most people however, he definitely knew that there was.

 

The alien named ‘Zim’ from the mysterious planet ‘Irk’ had disappeared completely ten years ago, just after Dib had turned twelve. The loss was so profound that when he saw the empty hole where the house once stood, it shook him to his very core. Everything he had worked for and everything he had seen had just suddenly become void. There would be no proof, no exciting chases, and no final showdown between earthlings and little green men. Life became too real and, in protest, he spent most of it locked in his room. Anti-social in the extreme, he did nothing but read and reread his old notes for months. When it finally became apparent that the alien was probably never coming back, he resigned himself to a half-assed existence in one of the most dubious scientific fields. His father had never been so happy.

 

Unbeknownst to most, he had stolen his job from the apprentice of a top alien researcher in the field. Coldly and methodically he did all the appropriate things and took all the appropriate actions to crush another human being’s dreams. And it hadn’t bothered him one bit. The work was hard and it paid poorly but he could try and squeeze just a little bit of those old exciting feelings from hard unyielding research.

 

“Zero after zero after zero,” he had said, staring at the performance sheet.

 

The technology he had access to was way beyond what most of his peers could ever hope to obtain due to his father's connections. Still, nothing. No radio wave penetration, no dying star with a last message from a vanishing alien race. No little green man to kick down his door and demand he keep his gigantic head of smell to himself.

 

Dib was finding nothing, just like every single person before him and even before that, ad nauseum to the very foundation of the research facility. There was no real reason to keep going; save for that one single dream that he would someday find something. That he would find real solid indisputable proof that aliens did exist, that he wasn’t crazy and that the insane green alien he had known so well in childhood hadn’t been just a morbid hallucination created by a disturbed mind.

 

And lately, he was far more than disturbed. Definitely, Gaz was onto something. He just hadn't made any solid plans yet. Dib had actually been depressed most of his adult life. It was as if since the day that the alien disappeared, his existence had remained suspended in some kind of inertia. It was as if his very soul had become engulfed in its tallow and was unable to move. Most days he could barely bring himself to eat to survive. He was pathetically thin, with dark gloomy circles under his eyes because of anxious sleep and the utter void he had felt creeping into his heart, which carried over to just about everything he did. The life he lived had become so insincere that if he were to die tomorrow, it wouldn’t really matter to him in any way. There was just nothing that meant anything in his existence anymore.

 

But then a certain call one day had come from his office; he was needed. Someone was actually requesting him - the usually sneered at expert on alien life to give an address to the scientific community. Some political bigwig had stumbled on the essential proof itself that alien life did in fact exist. But the technicalities didn’t matter to Dib; he'd had the ‘proof’ for years as far as he was concerned and all this was just a formality. Now he could finally go to a conference without being practically laughed out of it and tell the world the truth. All of his meaningless life had come down to this one single event.

 

Dib straightened the pleats on his lab jacket. He dressed to look like the personification of science, he even shined up his ultra cool goggles for added effect. He was ready.

 

“This is the moment you’ve been waiting for all your life,” he whispered to himself, “so don’t screw up.”

 

The minutes he had spent reminiscing about his horribly pathetic life weren’t important anymore. In fact nothing mattered at all now; after this address he would go home, have a shower and probably hang himself. It would be the last meaningful event in his empty existence.

 

When the curtains opened, just about every scientist in the country was standing in front of him enthralled, awaiting his conclusions on the extra terrestrial life that had so recently made contact with Earth. His dad was standing off to the side with a glimmer of joy shining in his glasses, probably from relief that his poor insane son had finally proven himself perfectly sane. Gaz was there, too, in the audience somewhere playing a Gameslave, most likely. Surprisingly, the aliens contacting Earth hadn’t been Irken or Zim-like at all. These were the totally unknown Meekrob, weird gelatinous blobs. Dib wondered if Zim would have had anything to say about them but knowing Zim as he had, it would have probably been a spiel about Irken superiority.

 

He stepped up to the podium and cleared his throat, “Greetings fellow humans,” he said, causing the mic to warble, “As you all know by now, aliens do in fact exist! As I so often pointed out in my youth when no one would listen!” he paused to proverbial crickets chirping. Sighing he continued. “But that doesn’t matter anymore. What’s important is that we subvert any possible attacks now and in the future by cooperating as best we can with our fellow living beings.”

 

The ground in front of him began to rumble. He paused momentarily while a monstrous shadow slowly swallowed the area in a deep adumbration. It suddenly began to progress frighteningly quickly. The expressions on the scientist’s faces were a mix of abject horror and amazement.

 

“THEY’RE HERE!!!” shrieked a professor in a long white coat, pointing frantically behind Dib.

 

As if the magic word had been spoken thousands of people began to run. The mic fell down in slow motion, as the entire world froze around him. It wasn't the meekrob, these aliens weren't peaceful. He knew that symbol. He could only stare up at the monstrous Irken Armada ship helplessly as it slid by above him.

 

He screamed, “Those are IRKENS!! Irkens!! Like I said! Like I said all along!!” he randomly grabbed strangers, trying to get them to stop for one second and acknowledge his shrieking erudition but they were panicked, struggling to get away.

 

No one was listening to his frantic pleas; they were all running. As he stood in the scrambling mob he could see his Dad running across the stage. He briefly looked up just in time to see a strange slit opening up on the belly of the spaceship clearly hovering over the sky. In about three seconds, he remembered everything he knew about Irken spaceships from Zim's computer that he had stolen. That thing opening up was a laser cannon.

 

“Holy shit, they’re going to kill us,” Dib said, “move, Dad, move!!” he tried to cry to his father across the grounds.

 

Blindingly hot beams shot down from the looming ship, frying everything in its path. As Dib was blown backwards, he could smell something burning. A terrible pain engulphed his left side as he became air born.

 

A sickening crunch was heard when he hit the ground. Something wet slid down his cheek; when he reached up to wipe it out of the way he felt the strangest pain. He could only see out of his right eye but he was able to see that the stage and podium were entirely gone. However, in the hazy dust ahead he could see a man in a white coat and a girl with purple hair running towards the now billowing black smoke. Did his father and Gaz somehow survive?

 

When the second shot came, he also heard even louder screaming.

 

“No! Dad! Gaz!” he gurgled out. A blackened skeletal hand reached towards them, when he realized it was his own he flung himself backwards screaming.

 

He clutched his chest with his less burned hand, “I’m going to die,” he whimpered. It suddenly hit him that in a screaming burning pile of thousands, death became a lot less appealing.

 

Dib finally collapsed and couldn’t move. As another dark looming shadow flew over him, he could barely make out the Irken symbol against the bright purple hull. He vaguely hoped for a quick and painless end as consciousness slipped away from him.

 

 

***

 

Billions of miles away in the deepest depths of the blackest space, very important space aliens were having a very important meeting. They were all there: every species and organization across the known universes to discuss with the Irkens a possible solution to the current problem.

 

A globular alien was rubbing his stubby gluey hands together nervously. There was a lot of money riding on this decision; a lot of profit could be made if they would just consider the feelings of his clients, the Organic Federation.

 

“But it’s in our way! That’s the whole point of destroying it,” the Irken ambassador argued, “if we can't blow up the other guys, they'll blow us up first. And that's not the Irken way!”

 

“Sir, if you and your kind could just wait for a few more days, we can get most of the useful material off that planet and you can go ahead!” argued Slorth, another globular being.

 

The Meekrob sighed, “We were just going to start up trade with these creatures. Their planet is full of natural resources and they’re easy to exploit if you throw a bunch of their silly paper money at them. This is really a big disappointment.”

 

The Irken rolled his eyes, “you know you were going to be compensated for any loss of trade. I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”

 

The Organic Federation representative, Glunther Slotroth, raised his wet slimy hand.

 

“Excuse me for a moment, sirs, but I think you’re forgetting a prime concern. This species’ capabilities are really quite unique. We’ve been testing them out secretly using sample beings we took from that planet years ago. It was a huge project and for it to go down the tubes because of a trans-dimensional portal you want to open up after blowing apart the Gartusians…”

 

The Irken eyed him impatiently. They weren't known to be reasonable beings, a lot of shooting first and asking questions later.

 

Glunther gulped, “all we need is 3 or 4 days. We’ll pick up as many as the species as we can. I’d say with that amount of time we could get 4 million. Maybe. It’s not as many as we’d like but better then just letting them go to waste. We’ll even give you a batch for yourselves if you want,” shrugged Glunther.

 

The Irken cringed, “No, thanks. But clarify this for me, Glunther, why should I waste time letting you save any of these…things?” he finished with a wave of his claw.

 

Glunther cleared his throat, “Well the fact of the matter, sir, is there are a whole lot of struggling organic species out there that all breed with chromosomes. These creatures are just fantastic for that purpose, chock full of chromosomes! Why their entire bodies are made of strands of the stuff,” he squealed excitedly, “You can alter both primitive sexes very simply and through an extended lifetime of several hundred years…my goodness they can have as many as fifty perfectly healthy children in the image of whatever alien race is cross bred! More if you’re attentive to their fragile flesh meats!” he rubbed his gooey hands together, “these creatures are too big a boon for us to ignore, so much profit to be made from their otherwise useless, fragile bodies. Imagine the endangered Blorphians and what these little mammalians could do for them! Blorphians only have one child every thousand years! With these creatures producing perfect genetic offspring there won’t even be an endangerment problem anymore and you can go back to using them in your mines as cheap labour!” Glunther finished ecstatically, waiting for the verdict with his slimy hands poised on the edge of the trapezoidal table.

 

The Irken thought about it for a minute then replied, “Well, it is hard to find replacement workers that can stand thousands of tons of pressure…and it would be nice to have more Zorbs to do our laundry. We’ll give you two days. The invasion will be paused during this period, but two days is all you’re getting!” he emphasized. “Get as many as you can. The rest will be counted as compensation by the mighty Irken Empire. This is assuming, of course, that it goes through the Tallest…”

 

Glunther smiled and nodded. There was no way they wouldn’t authorize something that meant less work for them.

 

“Thank you, Ambassador,” Glunther said smiling a huge wet sloppy grin.

 

The aliens conferred that this was a decision for the best and called a recess in Food Courtia. Afterwards they would discuss much more important matters than the lives of a few, squishy humans.

 

Life, death, and planetary destruction were just part of another day.

 

***

 

If the darkness of space was unforgiving, it was nothing compared to the creature occupying the starship docked beside an abandoned edge of the universe.

 

“I need twice as much as this. If you’re holding me to some obscure new law, then I need more organic matter NOW!” a voice said in an irritated fashion.

 

Dib couldn’t move. Where was he? He didn’t even know if he was alive or in some kind of terrible after life. His body felt absolutely stationary. He wasn’t in any direct discomfort but it was very cold and he couldn’t see.

 

“If you don’t want that human to die, send it to me immediately! I only have six jars left. No, he was burned badly! Yes! So you finally see why! Idiot stink creature! Just do it!” the voice sounded vaguely familiar. There was something about it but it was dark and hissing and definitely nothing like anything Dib had ever heard.

 

“Where am I?” he managed to scratch out of his torn throat.

 

He heard noises in the darkness. His vision was most definitely out; he couldn’t see a thing in front of him. But if the slight discomfort he began to feel was any indication, it seemed at least for now that this wasn’t a dream and he had indeed survived nearly burning to death in an Irken invasion.

 

“You’re on a spaceship. Go back to sleep, Dib. You’ll be fine, thanks to my amaaazing intelligence.”

 

That voice…where was it from? There was something threatening about it but comfortably familiar. Some childhood dream he couldn’t quite grasp.

 

It didn’t matter anymore because he couldn’t help himself from passing out.

 

His eyes opened sharply. Vague colours and shapes could be seen out of one eye but the creature looking down at him was easy to identify. Green skin and red eyes. An Irken but...it looked weird. And this one was at least as big as him, if not more. Nothing like the little pip squeaks he had run into on Earth.

 

The most agonizing pain Dib had ever felt in his life ripped through his body.

 

“Oh god, whatever you’re doing STOP!” he cried.

 

“Stop moaning, I’m CONCENTRATING,” the alien hissed.

 

“Please just let me die. Oh god….” He moaned again, “Let me die PLEASE!!” he sobbed uncontrollably, thrashing his head against metal restraints.

 

“Listen!! You have to be awake right now or you’ll really DIE. Let me finish or you’ll never see your big stupid head again!” it snapped.

 

“…Wait…who are you? Ugh,” he whimpered, “I know you…”

 

“Useless questions. The sooner you keep quiet the sooner I’ll be done.” It hissed at him.

 

He kept quiet as the blinding pain wracked through his body. He passed out twice but was woken up by whatever machinery he was hooked up to. His vision cleared briefly telling him he was in some kind of body sized tube. When he looked down near the alien, Dib could see his own skin pulled open in all directions. He reeled in horror; it appeared he was being operated on while he was conscious. Things began to get blurry.

 

“No, no, no, don’t you die yet, Dib. Not yet! Arrgh!” he could hear the frustrated screams right into his unconsciousness.

 

Again he opened his eyes. But this was completely different. Everything was clear now out of his right eye and faintly blurry from his left. The machines that were around the glass tube he could clearly see. A sheet covered his body. He could very slightly move his right hand but the left side of his body was still numb and useless. There were tubes and alien looking devices all over the place, meters and flashing Irken numbers and strange screens with even stranger pictures on them. He recognized something as an advanced heart monitor he had seen in the hospital once. Bits and pieces of conversation came back to him. He was on a spaceship, he knew that much, all he had to do was look around to figure that out. It was apparently Irken but weren’t they the ones destroying Earth? He was so confused. A door slid open to his left; he could hear it but he couldn’t turn his head to look.

 

“My skills were more incredible than I thought,” a voice said smugly. “You’re stable. Hmm…and awake.”

 

Who was this strange creature that spoke to him in such a familiar manner? The voice was probably the weirdest sound he had ever heard in his life. It was deep and distorted, nasal and echoing all at once.

 

“Wait,” he thought to himself, “nicknames I had when I was a kid, inflated ego, irritable disposition…” it all slid into place.

 

“Is that…you? Zim?” he choked out.

 

“I wondered when you’d figure it out. Humans are so stupid,” he cackled, from the other side of the room.

 

There was something crueler about his mannerisms. Something inherently meaner about the way he spoke. And his voice was so much deeper, it sounded like it had been bizarrely warped.

 

“You’re…different. What happened to you?” he whispered.

 

“Nothing you need to know about, earth stink. Don’t expect to be awake again for a while.” The alien hit a button on one of the machines, “but when you do wake up, you should be feeling less like a Gorthian's inner stomach lining.”

 

“Wait! What the hell is a Gorthian?!” but Zim had already left through the sliding door and a creeping fog had forced his body in a cold dark slumber.

 

When next he woke up, he was in a room. He could see clearly out of his left eye and joyfully he realized he could move his hands. He was dressed in simple black clothes; a long sleeved shirt and some pants. He was barefoot but as he roused himself he saw simple fabric shoes set out by his bed. He struggled for moment, righting himself, and then got attacked with a severe case of vertigo.

 

“Argh,” he grabbed his head.

 

Stricken with sudden panic, he looked at his hands. They looked normal. His right hand was perfect and the left only had a few slight scars you had to really squint at to see. He laughed in nervous relief and then frowned. He needed to get to a mirror. Why had he been unable to see out of his left eye before?

 

He staggered to his feet, which was more difficult then it should have been, and walked towards the green door in the entirely green room. It had an Irken symbol on it he didn’t recognize. When he went through he was greeted with a fairly normal looking bathroom, it would have fit right at home on an earth sci-fi movie set. The whole place was green; it was kind of weird to Dib. But then, at this point, what wouldn’t be weird when he had spent an undisclosed amount of time unconscious on an alien ship. Dib found what he was looking for.

 

The mirror hung off to the side under a fancy panel that lifted when touched. It was in hesitant inches that he exposed himself to the reflective surface. He could see his black mussed hair with his eternal cowlick, his pale skin and then both his brown eyes. He let out a sigh of relief. It all looked normal.

 

“Wait…” he said as he leaned in close, “my eye…”

 

He touched it. It was hard. The pupil felt like it shifted, as if it were mechanical. His left eye was apparently a prosthetic.

 

“Oh god,” he moaned as it suddenly struck him as to what had been sliding down his face on that battlefield.

 

He grabbed the edges of the sink for a minute, calming down his rapid breathing.

 

“Dib, don’t be a moron. It could have been so much worse. A fake eye is nothing compared to what might have happened.” He said, breathing deeply.

 

When he was sufficiently calmed, he took off the shirt and examined his back. Scars were thicker there on the left side. There was also a very faint line running down his back to his tailbone. His chest once again was only slightly marred on the left, everything else was pristine. He made a quick check between his legs. Everything was fine there too. He laughed at himself.

 

“You’re such a dork,” he said out of abject relief.

 

He wandered out into the room again. The bed was actually pretty big- green with purple pillows. There was no adornment on the walls, and only a single stuffed chair and an end table. There were no magazines, books or anything else that looked remotely interesting. There was a small control panel by the door and what looked like an electronic writing tablet on the end table. He picked up the tablet and took the stylus from the side. It seemed to have a bunch of electronic books on it. Lots of stuff in weird alien languages he didn’t know how to read, surprisingly a bunch of human classics. And then, all in a row at the end were some oddly familiar pieces of literature.

 

“ _Swollen Eyeball’s Guide to the Paranormal, Aliens and You, Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other Creatures, Mysteries Unexplained_ ,” Dib swallowed. “These are all the books I had in my room as a kid. Wait…now I remember!” he put down the stylus, “Zim! It was Zim who rescued me!”

 

He ran over to the door, tracing his hands around its shape trying to find a way out, but to no avail.

 

“Come on, there must be some way to open it up! Zim! Hey Zim! Zim you jerk, I know it was you! Come out!” he banged on the door frantically.

 

In another part of the ship, a delighted Irken watched the human struggle in his confinement.

 

Zim’s antennae twitched in excitement. It was just like old times again for him, those vague memories he had recovered from his brain meats once he had left his exile. Zim grinned, if only Dib could see him now, the horror he had become. Revenge against the Irken empire and all that it entailed didn’t mean anything to him anymore, in fact, it was the nothingness in his existence that had led him to seek out Dib on that ball of revolting dirt, when he had heard it was slated for total destruction.

 

Zim cackled; his power had become so great that even the Irken empire was terrified of him and let him go wherever he pleased. But that great power also left him bored with living, everything was so easy now; everything he did was effortless in execution. There wasn’t any joy in hunting down prey that would just roll over and die.

 

But this human he had remembered, was an old challenger. And that made things much more interesting in the void that occupied the greater part of his vengeance.

 

“You were once a threat to small weak little Zim,” he cackled, “but not anymore, _Dib!_ I have you right where I want you.”

 

Shrieking laughter reverberated in deep endless space.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Kinetic Chapter 2: Dissolve

 

Dib had banged on that door for what seemed like hours but no one had come. He had paced nervously around his room until exhaustion crawled deep into his bones and he had to lie down on the bed to avoid passing out.

 

Yet sleep would not easily be had. The lonely moments had always gave him time to reflect on how miserable he was and now at the present time, he wondered what had happened to everyone that had been on Earth.

 

“I always told myself I wouldn’t give a shit if everyone died,” he laughed bitterly, “but I can’t stop thinking about it now.”

 

His body suddenly felt very heavy and cold.

 

“In all possibility I could be the only one saved,” he began to shudder, “And Zim might be planning some hideous torturous death or who knows what other horrible fucking things.”

 

It wasn’t as if he could work up some deep sense of camaraderie for other human beings but at the same time, he couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of regret. He had ruined other people’s lives or at the least, had made people like Rachel have a harder one. And now they were probably all dead. Of course, he would have still been mired in his little personal dramas if it weren’t for this most unfortunate series of events.

 

“Your life has been such a joke,” he laughed sourly to himself.

 

Dib wiped his eyes hastily when the tears started to fall. It wasn’t enough to be forced into some inexplicable fate, everything he had tried to do in his life on Earth had gone wrong and when it hadn’t gone wrong, it had just been empty. Hopeless. Devoid. Nothing held any real meaning to him then and it was difficult to feel anything but intense relief that he didn't have to enter the daily grind anymore. None the less, he couldn't help but feel a terrible sense of loss.

 

“Don’t feel sorry for yourself,” he hissed angrily, “you’re lucky you made it out. How many people died? Stupid…”

 

A sudden SHOOP alerted him that the door had suddenly opened. He jumped up.

 

“Zim?” he said.

 

There was no one there. But he could see out into the hallway and to his intense relief there was finally a path to follow to get some answers.

 

The hallway shifted and moved with various colours. This place was advanced; it wasn’t entirely Irken either from what he understood of their technology. Everything moved and warped, walls and floors floated along on some colourful existential plane, hallways were created as he took steps, all he had to do was walk straight ahead.

 

He ended up in a room full of flashing screens. A chair was in the centre, it was dark but he could make out someone sitting there.

 

A hissing voice whispered out in the dark, “Do you believe in destiny, Dib beast? I didn't, they don't teach us the concept on Irk. But other aliens do, just like stinking humans. They told me about earth so I came and there you were on a silly earth podium flapping your stupid human gums.”

 

Dib started. He had known what was coming but it was still a shock. This...wasn't right.

 

“So it’s really you, Zim?” he said.

 

“Yes, it is _really_ me.” He snickered.

 

Dib moved slightly from left to right trying to make him out in the flickering lights shimmering in the dark communications room.

 

“You sound different,” he said nervously, “and you’re…taller than me now.” He laughed a little trying to hide his obvious fear.

 

“Lots of things have changed, Dib- human,” Zim rasped, “I’m more than I ever was as an Invader of your puny planet.”

 

He moved from his seat now, Dib could see him walking closer. His silhouette must have been almost seven feet. To Dib standing at a mere 5 foot seven, he was impressed to say the least. And also absolutely terrified. The game they had been playing as kids put him on edge, it had never been resolved. Was the alien still intent on destroying him? As Zim stepped closer his heart leaped into his stomach. The lights that had faintly illuminated him from the back now allowed Dib to see him much better from the front.

 

“Oh, holy fuck,” he whispered.

 

“Impressive, yes?” chortled Zim.

 

Zim was not quite Zim anymore. When Zim’s slash of a mouth opened to speak, Dib could count in minimum at least three rows of very sharp looking teeth. The long legs were covered in fissures and what looked like exo-skeletal ridges. If Dib had to make a comparison, he would have called him a sadist’s version of a praying mantis. But what terrified him more then the twisted and warped Irken face that greeted him with a hideous leer; were Zim’s dark and pitiless eyes. They were like black unending pits that held throbbing senseless red orbs. Unblinkingly they stared at him and Dib could see that without a doubt in their dark depths, there was something hideous and insane. The costume Zim wore was altered, it still had some of the old Irken colours but it had a delicately arranged cape and was almost regal in nature. There were no Irken symbols on it; however he still sported what Dib knew as standard issue Irken gloves but in this case gigantic black claws had burst through the material. Strangely he noted; bandages were wrapped around them, as it seemed they were leaking fluid.

 

Dib swallowed audibly, reminding himself desperately not to show fear, “you look really…different.” He stuttered.

 

Zim snickered again, skirting around Dib as if examining him too.

 

“My genius is excellent. I completely repaired all the cells and tissue. Except for that eye,” he mumbled, “too bad about that. But there was no time to close the fissures and grow another one. Organics are in high demand, too many wars. Too little flesh farming.”

 

Dib watched him creep around the room like some kind of monstrous Earth insect. The clicking as his legs moved was distinctly unsettling, it reminded Dib of some kind of predator.

 

“That’s uh, ok. Nothing you could do,” he said, awkwardly shrugging.

 

“If you want to see the whole ordeal, I took pictures for research purposes while you were recovering,” Zim said excitedly, gesturing to a small tablet setting on the panel.

 

A little hesitant, Dib picked it up gingerly and flicked on the screen. He felt ill. The pictures of him were horrible. Half his face was smashed in, his eye had been oozing down his cheek and the skin on his entire left side of his body was charred and practically black. He flicked the picture to the next one and almost puked. Half of his skin was being removed and his organs were in plain view. He turned the tablet off and put it down.

 

“I can’t really…look at that.” He said quietly, “thanks for saving me. I don’t even know why, I mean when we were kids we were enemies. But thanks regardless,”

 

“Don’t feel too good about yourself Dib,” Zim snapped, “it was out of my own interest to repair your weak fleshy body. _Earthlings_ are an endangered species.”

 

All of the colour drained from Dib’s face, “what do you mean by endangered?”

 

Zim grinned in the darkness, “Irk had your planet marked out for destruction years after I left. They wanted to build some moronic interstellar portal to facilitate a war. Humans were just casualties in an uncaring universe, until,” Zim paused almost reflecting whether to go on, “…the reasons are unimportant. Suffice to say that 4 million were removed from the planet before it was destroyed.”

 

Dib stood agape.

 

“4 million were removed? Earth was…destroyed?!” he said losing all sense of composure, “wait, you can’t be serious! There’s no way!”

 

“Delude yourself all you want Dib. You can look at every map from the entire universe, there is no Earth anymore!” Zim said triumphantly.

 

“This is…some kind of nightmare!” he cried, crumpling onto his knees.

 

“Face reality Dib,” Zim’s shadow loomed over him, “ all Earthenoids are slaves to either Irk or other planets. You should be so lucky to belong to the mighty Zim,” he chuckled, “there was never any game to be won at all. You were always the inferior being, this is just a technicality to prove it!”

 

“How can you be so cruel?” he shouted clutching his head, “ how can you possibly be this cruel?!”

 

Zim’s laughter echoed in his head. Dib was going to be sick, he convinced himself, he was going to hurl his tactile disgust all over the pristine pitiless machinery that held the twisted place he was forced to call home. But he didn’t have time to reject the pitiable contents of his starved stomach, instead he blacked out.

 

He shot upright on the bed.

 

“Where…I’m back in the room?” he sighed.

 

The stress had been too great on his newly repaired body; everything was aching. He rubbed his face as if that would help him make sense of anything. He looked around noticing a triangular shaped plate with some food on it sitting on the small end table.

 

He picked it up and began to eat with great gusto. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was. But as he finished chewing the first couple bites he realized where this food had come from and sat it quickly back on the table. He stared at it for a few moments. His stomach growled. He picked up the food again and ate slowly and miserably. After his ordeal, it was in his best interest to keep himself healthy and alive he reasoned, that way he could possibly find a way to get out of Zim’s clutches and verify if anything he said was true or not.

 

But when he thought about it, Zim didn’t really have a need to lie. Dib was already in his clutches for whatever nefarious purposes he needed him for and the whole Earth thing was very circumstantial. Zim had never shown any interest in him until now when presented with a profit to himself. For all he knew, if what Zim had said was indeed true, he would most likely be sold off.

 

Yet…didn’t Zim mention something about being his owner?

 

Dib set the empty plate back on the table. That did not sit well with him in any capacity. Just what were they using humans for anyway?

 

The door opened again with a SHOOP. Dib sat nervously on the edge of the bed. He sighed and then got up and made his way out into the hallway.

 

The room he walked in was much less sinister then the one before it. This one Dib admitted was pretty awesome; it had a huge glass dome as a roof. Millions of stars were up in the sky but none of them were recognizable. Zim was at another panel pointing with his claws on some kind of projection.

 

He had to quell his rage before it reached its boiling point and remind himself that playing the meek little Earthenoid in this situation was far more advantageous then making a scene. Zim was a powerful alien now but that didn’t mean he had no weaknesses. After all, Dib reminded himself, Zim really sucked back on Earth. He couldn’t have gotten _that_ much better in such a short time in Irken terms. There would be a way to get out of this, he knew there had to be, it would just take some time to figure it out.

 

Dib cleared his throat, “Zim, where are we exactly? If you don’t mind me asking…”

 

Zim pointed to a tablet sitting off to one side, “Take that. When you want to leave your room use it to guide you through the ship. Don’t expect to do any sabotage, that tablet will only let you go into rooms I authorized. This place is far too advanced for a mere humanoid to tamper with anyway.”

 

Dib picked it up, flipping it over in his hands, “you didn’t answer my question Zim.”

 

Zim grumbled, “we’re at the very edges of SPACE Dib. Before a huge dark void impassable to most spaceships. Now go. Explore. I’m busy.”

 

Dib shrugged, “thanks. I guess.” And left the hostile alien to his own devices.

 

Zim was right about the place being too advanced for Dib to understand. The tablet he had been given seemed to send messages to the main motherboard of the ship, changing the walls and floors so he could traverse throughout. How one did this without a tablet he couldn’t begin to guess, which made his heart sink a little at the thought of somehow escaping.

 

He managed to make it to the library, the number one place on his list to check out. A library might have a census and if humans indeed were so valued as Zim said, then maybe there would be something about the survivors. If it was like before, then this Irken ship would have all common information stored on an un-encrypted hard drive. Assuming that he was authorized as Zim so gently put it, to use such a device. However, if he could access it that meant he could most likely find out what happened to Gaz and his father.

 

In the library was a small trapezoid shaped tables and a few soft looking chairs. The room was a deep blue and had lots of book shelves. Old looking alien literature sat in various states on them, some written on reed or sticks wrapped up in bundles and others in more familiar book shapes. However, it was quite apparent the modern stuff was in the tablets that were laying around on the shelves in the rooms. Zim must have used this room a lot; stuff was everywhere. He had to sift through a couple of tablets before he found one that dealt specifically with modern times and had an option in a human language he could understand.

 

“Bingo” he said after a good hour of reading, “the part about human beings is in this one.”

 

He skimmed straight to the census but his face soon fell.

 

“No names,” he sighed, “just numbers.” 

 

The key for the numbers didn’t tell him much: hair colour, eye colour and sex but nothing that would really stick out. If 4 million humans had been rescued people who physically resembled Gaz and his Dad would be all over the place. It was a hopeless effort to track them by this means, if they had even survived. He set the tablet down, hopelessly depressed and dejected. It was then however, that he noticed another tablet buried under some books. It wasn’t blue like the rest; instead it was pink and purple like Zim’s old base. Intrigued Dib picked it up and took a look.

 

“It’s…It’s an Invader Report.” He said surprised, “wow, this takes me back.”

 

In the audio reports were mentions of Dib and their scuffles way back in elementary school. He hit play. Dib's heart began to beat faster and his breath quickened, that nostalgic excitement reared its head again. It was a very careful recounting of everything they had done, including some pretty crazy theories of Zim’s about how to subvert the ‘Inferior Dib human’ and other things. When he got to when he was about 12 years of age, the time in which Zim disappeared, the reports took an unusual turn. There were only two entries in between that strange 12 year period.

 

_The tallest are finally coming! All my hard work has finally paid off! I AM ZIM! VICTORY FOR ZIM!_

 

Dib felt a creeping sensation crawl up his spine when he played the last entry. The voice was warped, it was different. Filled with rage.

 

Irkens……. I will kill them……..I will kill them all. I’ll have my revenge, like……….Blorth. It’s my turn now. The entire Armada couldn’t stop me. Everyone will die.

 

There was something horrifying about such crudely worded hatred. It slowly dawned on Dib that while he led his dull gray life, somewhere out there the alien that had given him the only excitement he had ever known had been suffering some horrible unknown tortures, only to end up becoming the monster that he was now. Something terrible must have happened to Zim, some mystery out in space.

 

Curiously Dib opened up the geographic tablet to look up information on planet Blorth. It came up restricted.

 

“You don’t want me to know anything about it, do you Zim?” he whispered under the cold blue lights, “but then why did you leave that log out here for me to see?” 

 

After a long day of reading Dib had retired to sleep. It had been a rough day for him, for many reasons. His sleep however, was troubled with strange dreams. It was as though he was seeing some kind of movie playing out in his mind. Monsters danced in his peripheral vision on a strange planet he’d never seen. Occasionally an Irken woman’s face slipped into his dreams. In the dream he knew she was very kind and was looking out for him. All of a sudden the mood of the dream changed, it became dark and foreboding. The strange primitive planet was alight with flames. A huge looming shadow stood over him in the darkness. He was suddenly snapped awake.

 

“Wh-? Oh, it’s you. Go away I’m sleeping Zim,” He mumbled, “I know Irkens don't sleep, but humans need to.” 

 

Claws suddenly raked down his back, he tried to scramble up but he was quickly forced back onto the bed face down by Zim’s very large mandible.

 

“Fucking hell,” he whimpered, “are you going to kill me now after all that effort to save me?”

 

His voice was muffled by the sudden pressure of the pillow on his mouth.

 

“Zimmph,” Dib said, “ZMMPH!” 

 

The top of his head was being forced deeper in the soft down as the claws raked clumsily down his body. When he realized they were tearing apart his clothes he began to really struggle.

 

Dib saw where his situation was headed and was dead terrified. Zim was not responding, from the glance Dib could manage nearly suffocated by the pillow, his eyes were very far away. The sinister globes inside the black holes weren't really conscious at all. It was horrible, it was terrifying. There was something seriously wrong with Zim.

 

Dib screamed loudly when the claws harshly scratched down his flesh, drawing blood but his head was quickly shoved back onto the cushion in order to keep him silent. A wet tongue slid along the back of his neck and he thought in his terrified state that he could hear Zim eerily laughing.

 

Words came out of Zim's mouth that were in another language.

 

His translator, Dib thought hazily, it must be broken. Because Zim's insane.

 

Zim settled between his legs his grotesque jaws snapping in the air, the feeling of something horribly hot pressing at Dib's insides wasn't welcome. He wondered if he would die as he felt the awful sharp points sticking into his innards; Irken equipment it seemed was roughly spiked.

 

God it hurt going in, Dib cried into the pillow he was being smothered in and felt like he was going to be torn apart. When Zim rested all the way in, Dib felt what he could only describe as a porcupine-like sensation. The tiny burs had expanded and dug into him. It felt weird, it felt wrong, it felt...

 

Dib's face turned flush when a sudden rush of pleasure assaulted his body.

 

“Oh no no no,” he whimpered to himself, “this can’t be happening. My own fucking body is not going to betray me!”

 

But he had no control over it. He concluded that the spikes produced some kind of aphrodisiac and now he was lost feeling pleasure in something he should be repulsed by.

 

'What is wrong with you,” Dib wanted to scream, “why are you doing this?! What happened to you?”

 

Dub shuddered and came as he felt a bite on the back of his neck, weird how pain had suddenly become so close to pleasure. It stung and sharply contrasted with the uncontrollable spasms coursing through him. It felt so good and yet...he writhed under the massive, insect-like body. It was something out of a horror movie.

 

Everything suddenly became still. Zim's legs flexed against Dib and he let out what Dib could only associate with some kind of primitive howl. There was a shift of weight and his inner most cavity was vacated with such delicate care that Dib realized with stark horror Zim was not unaware. He was doing this deliberately. Dib felt the touch of hands on his head, almost a mock caress against his hair. A sob escaped Dib’s lips and with just as much suddenness as he had appeared, Zim vanished from the room with a flurry of motion.

 

Dib was alone once again.

 

His breath came out in ragged gasps, “calm down. Just calm right the fuck down. Get up, get up and get to the bathroom. Your shoulder has gashes and you need to see if there’s something to treat it with,” he continuously mumbled this mantra to himself as he staggered from the bed.

 

The bathroom did appear to have a medicine cabinet in it that was full of various first aid devices. Dib wondered if Zim had built this ship at all or if it was just given to him fully outfitted. He checked his shoulder in the mirror and was astounded when he watched the wounds on his shoulder close very slowly by themselves.

 

“Something was done to my body on the operating table,” he said, feeling cold all over.

 

Dib washed the feint red marks that remained of his wounds but didn’t feel the need to dress them. He clutched the edge of the sink just like he had done his first day in the ship owned by his greatest enemy and heaved. His nerves had finally crumpled to the point that he was heaving over a sink in a spaceship billions of miles away from a home that didn’t exist without shame or consideration.

 

“Fucking shit,” he hissed clutching the sides of the receptacle as he reeled, “this is like some kind of horrible personal hell!” 

 

A dark black tar-like substance slid down his thigh. Blinking, he touched it with his hands and winced when he realized what it was.

 

“That's so gross,” he mumbled staggering on his legs again, determined to clean himself up before collapsing from exhaustion. 

 

When he had finished, he went back to the empty room. It was as if nothing had happened. The only indication that anything had gone on at all was the rumpled bed and the mess he had discarded down the toilet.

 

Dib only laid for a moment against the cool sheets before he began to cry. Heavy sobs wracked his body as he furled himself around the sheets; naked and isolated from everything he had ever known. He could no longer live in fond memories of a little green alien or hot summer nights chasing his fancies around in his backyard. As he lay weeping in the darkness of an empty room in the blackest depths of space, Dib felt that he had been tossed senselessly into a vortex without any knowledge of why. From sheer exhaustion alone, he managed to fall asleep. Dreams of a far away planet, strange barbaric dances and of a kind Irken woman were overshadowed by a menacing dark presence.

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

Kinetic Chapter 3: Clarity

 

 

The colours swelled and transformed in the bright hallways as walls became floors and ceilings arched into doors. The rainbow interior of Zim’s ship listened to the request of its owner and changed its insides at will. The ship had been a ‘gift’ from the mighty Irken Empire, built especially for him with the skills of a race that had been obliterated centuries ago. In civilized space, a ship like this would be the ultimate status symbol; for at its most simple, it was a giant psychic oscillator that could perform tasks as quickly as a living being could think them. However, Zim had it especially in mind not for prestige but because his obsession would never be able to use it. Humans didn’t have very established psychic abilities and even the most talented would never be able to manipulate a huge mechanism in as precise a manner needed to facilitate results.

 

He had created many additions. Especially since his latest acquisition of the human Dib who had so haunted his mind these past fifteen years. Zim found it amusing that the lesser life forms that weren’t blessed with such an astronomical life span as the Irken race had the gall to think that time moved more quickly for him. Factually, every moment seemed three times as long and with that considered even seconds of pain could stretch on to unbearable minutes, a few years of wandering aimlessly in space could seem like centuries and the longing for a certain tantalizing individual would be amplified to a mind altering level. Insanity in an ordinary Irken would be kept to a minimum with their pacs and hive mindset, just as with most creatures in space that lived for very long periods. There was always something in place to keep their collective selves on task. Zim of course, had been a strange case to start out with but when he was released from the regal embrace of the great and mighty Irken Empire something had undoubtedly snapped. His hideous appearance was testament to a darker and more loathsome time. A ‘throw back gene’ he’d heard it called. He didn’t really care to understand its historical implications. Whatever it was, it made the things he did with Dib that much more pleasurable.

 

Zim had no concern about ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ or even a compromising middle ground. The only thing that existed in his awareness was his selfish need to control and dominate the world around him. Morality never concerned him much as an Irken Elite but there was a certain status quo to be followed. Now in the blackness of space with no one to answer to but himself, his ferociously bizarre personality was left to congeal into a virulent soup on its own accord.

 

The monstrous things he did to the Dib human made Zim smile with fiendish glee. At the back of his mind he knew what would be the end result, under interstellar law the human body had to be altered to suit its owner or the individual deemed useless and destroyed. Since Dib’s destruction simply would not suffice, Zim had done what was required of him. Deep in his pitch black alien organs a desire lurked; never whispered by even his subconscious, he wanted the Dib to be bound to him in some fundamental way. Imprisonment was not enough, there was always the potential to escape and Dib was nothing if not resourceful and clever, but if Zim could create an inescapable situation…it was clear. He would win. The game would close and at it’s end would enter a new age of glorious victory that would alleviate his miserable boredom.

 

But things hadn’t always been so delectably sinister. Zim begrudgingly let his mind wander to that other time when he was alone, without a ‘show’ to put on to terrify his enemies and make weak those he wished to dominate. There had been a time when simple revenge against the Irken empire had almost seemed like the right path to take. Long long ago on a little planet….called Blorth.

 

***

 

It was a fateful day when Zim stood on Blorth. The armada ship had just left; they had tossed him out a few feet above the ground with very little ceremony.

 

“Have fun Zim!” they had giggled as the ship zoomed away.

 

Even then with his ultra warped sense of ego, he could tell things were not going well at all. This was Blorth, the planet where Irken who meant trouble to the Armada were sent to die. Horrible things happened on Blorth, you could hear the captains and mechanics whisper stories to each other on slow days. This was where monster Irkens roamed, genetic misfortunes or mistakes made by the smeet factories. Huge and hideous they supposedly roamed the planet looking for less fortunate Irkens to mate with. The very word itself; mating that is, caused him to shudder with uncontrollable fear. It was every Irken's worst nightmare.

 

It was without a doubt that this was an astronomically bad couple of days, even for Zim. His base was in tatters, his SIR unit had been scrapped and to top it all off, the pac had been ripped unceremoniously from his body. He did however take secret delight when the Tallest stood aghast with their mouths hanging open as he stood looking up at them, a little blearily granted but he was still on his own two feet.

 

“He….he didn’t die!” Purple said aghast.

 

“Ugh,” Red hung his head, “what did you expect?! Send him to Blorth.”

 

With a wave of their claws he was picked up by two very stern looking guards and tossed into a ship and now here he was, cold and alone on a supposedly hellish planet.

 

Zim stood where he had landed and kicked the dirt a little. He didn’t really know what to do. His pac wasn’t there anymore to send him instructions. In fact, if the pac hadn’t been there a few years ago he probably would have just left Earth and all of its stupid inhabitants. As his mind chewed this new information it suddenly dawned on him that the entire time he spent there had been a bit of a joke to the Tallest. Transmissions and conversations played back in his mind, to his humiliation without his pac to tell him things the light had _finally_ come on.

 

“They…they wanted me the mighty ZIM to FAIL!” he said astounded.

 

He had been sent there as an exile and when THAT hadn’t worked here he was now, on Blorth a sure fire execution. A horrible sense of impending doom engulfed him.

 

Zim fearfully clutched his small green head.

 

“If I were a hideous Irken beast, where would I be?” he whimpered furtively.

 

There was a shockingly loud crash behind him. What did he see come through the bushes but the very epitome of his nightmares. There were three of them wildly drooling and shrieking. Their huge claws and sunken eyes assailed his senses with fear; he had to run but didn’t know how.

 

“Just pretend it’s that idiot Dib,” he urged his mind, “and he’s got a set of stun cuffs. It’s only that Big Headed stupid Earthenoid so RUN for Irks’ sake! RUN!!”

 

He managed to lift himself in time to barely miss a claw to the face.

 

“Filthy SCUM!! I am your SUPERIOR!!” Zim shrieked.

 

His admonitions were quickly cut off when another two crazed Irkens joined up in the quarry. They looked at him hungrily, their eyes floating around and tongues lolling in expectation. For the first time in his entire Irken life, Zim felt utter and total pant soiling fear.

 

Zim’s mad dashes through the underbrush led him to the mouth of a swamp at the foot of a small mountain. He scrambled through the wet and onto the rock cliffs as quick as his small Irken body could carry him. Up ahead a hollow log appeared buried into the rocks and it was in this, he took his frantic refuge.

 

Hideous distorted screaming faces clawed and maimed their way through. Each scrape brought them closer to him and each growl made it known of their intent to slay and slaughter. They were almost to him now and as he clung to his head at the very bottom if his dank habitat, they stopped but mere inches from his skull. The cries were mournful and irritated for the rocks had just blocked them from digging the rest of the way. For a few hours they lurked just outside of the log hissing and pacing, their distorted faces charged with maddened bloodlust; eventually they thrashed off into the swamp to find more accessible prey.

 

Zim was quivering in the tiny hole, alone and scared. Even in the blackest most unforgiving wormholes in space he had never felt so frightened. He had nothing to defend himself with except his Invader Suit and a simple log he had kept hidden from his person when the guards had shook him down. This wasn’t the silly game of tag that he had played with the simple minded Earthenoid Dib, this was actual survival and when Zim thought about it; it was something he was completely unfamiliar with. He had always had something; technology or other Invaders and in his extreme case on Earth a bunch of nitwitted imbeciles to exploit. This was in another realm completely.

As he cowered in his small almost decimated log watching the sun go down, he realized that it was the first time he had ever been truly alone. Hours came and went with myopic intensity.

 

“Hey you,” the voice roused him from his thoughts.

 

How much time had passed? It was deep in the night now as Zim had been too terrified to move.

 

“That’s it, you can come on out now. I’m Glim an Irken just like you. And not one of the crazy ones,” she smiled at him extending her hand.

 

He took it gingerly as she helped him out of his confinement.

 

“You’ll die in there if you stay here for much longer. Those Blorthiens don’t give up,” she sighed clucking irritably, “what’s your name soldier? I see you’re wearing the uniform of an Invader. So what did you do? Blow up a planet? Annoy the Tallest? Forget to refill their soda containers?”

 

When Zim had felt a little more stable on his feet he quickly brushed off his uniform and regained his air of superiority.

 

“Nooo of course not! What I did was….was….was…an act of tactical GENUIS,” he proclaimed, “ I am ZIM conqueror of Earth! And if you know how to get off of this wretched filthy planet then direct me to it! I have important work to do,” he gestured wildly.

 

Glim stared at him for a minute and then started to laugh, “you think…ha ha! You think that if I actually knew a way off of this…*snerk* horrible planet I’d still be here?! Oh Zim, you’re either an idiot or a comedic genius. Come on let’s go back to my cave. We’ll get you cleaned up.”

 

Zim blinked up at her for a few minutes, not entirely sure if he was being insulted in a round about way or not but followed her for lack of better options despite it.

 

As they were walking Zim scoffed.

 

“So what exactly did _you_ do then to deserve exile?” he asked snootily.

 

“Oh little ol’ me? Ha ha!” she tittered giggling, “I was an elite guard that just happened to assassinate one of the next Tallest in line.”

 

Zim’s eyes popped open, “really? You know, I always wanted to do that. Them and their stupid superiority complexes,” he grumbled, “thinking that they’re better than me, ZIM! An Invader of other planets! Grr…argh…gragh..” and he muttered for quite some time fisting the air around him in irritation.

 

Glim chuckled, “well it was over something a little more serious then that. But I didn’t regret it one bit. Although I must say, ending up here was not on my to-do list by any stretch of the imagination.“

 

Zim stared at her for a long moment, “Hey waitaminute I’m positive that you’re definitely taller then any of the Tallest!”

 

She grinned, “well duh. Of course I am. That’s because Irkens grow when their pacs are taken off. Don’t you get it? We were assigned jobs with these things, we’re given directions through them. Here, I’ll put it simply: they’re like little controller brains that tell our bodies everything. Although I can tell right away if you’re yammering off like that about the Tallest yours was obviously faulty.”

 

“FAULTY?!” Zim screeched.

 

“Don’t worry about it Zim, you might end up taller then me because of it,” she said enthusiastically, “wouldn’t that be cool? You could end up taller then the Tallest!”

 

Zim thought for a moment, “That does sound rather good. Then my incredible GENIUS will be matched by my engorging height!” he cackled loudly.

 

Glim shook her head, “anyone ever tell you you’re a megalomaniac?”

 

“Huh?” Zim uttered clueless, totally engrossed in his fantasies of monstrous Tallest rivalling height.

 

“Never mind,” she sighed, shaking her head.

 

The cave was on a large hill. Zim curiously noted that it was surrounded by a circle of ash, wood and tinder.

 

“It’s firewood to keep the Blorthiens out,” Glim remarked.

 

She sat him down at the very back, where the obvious living quarters were. There was a straw bed, a bunch of pottery, some items that looked like they came from other ships and a bunch of bottles and jars with labels similar to old Irk medicine. Zim recognized them from the basic mandatory Invader survival course he had taken. There was a small fire pit towards the middle of the area and some pots and other dishware lying around it. There were no shelves so things were just in organized piles.

 

Glim leaned down towards the bottles and grabbed a few, “Zim, you’re going to have to take off your shirt. We need to check on those empty ports on your back.”

 

Zim bristled, “my ports are FINE. I don’t need PRODDING and POKING!”

 

Glim sighed, “do you want to grow tall or not? If they’re infected you can die. Let me see them ok? It won’t take long.”

 

Zim grumbled but relented. His red Invader uniform came off and he sat on a small stone while Glim took a look at his back.

 

She fussed for a moment, “geez, just as I thought. There’s an infection. Well lucky for you I still have some dressing and bandages from the last ship that was crashed here.”

 

Zim winced as she poked at his port openings, “ ships come here?”

 

“No silly,” she said using a pointed stick to poke his skin and draw out the puss, “the Tallest dump useless ships here. They crash them of course to make them unusable but they’re usually still pretty well outfitted. A few hours from here there’s a virtual ship graveyard, unfortunately they take just about everything that could be of any use to us and incinerate it. But there’s lots of basic medical supplies and stuff like that,” she sat back wiping her hands on a cloth.

 

“Aside from that the only ships coming here are to drop people like us off,” she finished by bandaging his back with considerable skill, “there you go. That should heal in a few days.”

 

Zim looked around furtively, “those…things aren’t going to be able to get in here?”

 

“That’s what the fire around the circumference is for,” she said matter of factly, “not that we need it too often, they have weird rituals up on the mountain at night,” she pointed to the cave opening that gave a direct view to an obvious hillside.

 

Zim shuddered, “what are they?”

 

Glim shrugged, “from what I can gather from old reports and Irk history is that they’re a distortion of one of the two races that make up modern Irkens. A really really long time ago there were two different kinds and they interbred to create us. I guess during our industrialization and when the controller brains were created our genes got all messed up. Some Irkens just die when they’re pacs are removed, others become crazy and end up like them and some of the lucky ones end up like us.”

 

Glim handed some fresh clothes to her new charge, “Here, they aren’t quite your size but if my stay here was any indication you’ll grow into them soon.”

 

Zim snatched them from her outstretched hand. His stay? Here? Ha! Zim would have laughed if he hadn’t been so tired from all the running and hiding. He would find a way to get off of this stinking planet, conquer Earth and then have his revenge on the Tallest! He wouldn’t let them get away with tossing aside the amazing Invader Zim! But right now as an Invader he needed to rest. He didn’t know why but his eyes were drooping, it was a weird sensation unlike anything he’d felt in his long Irken life.

 

Zim yawned and Glim grinned at him, “Go ahead and take a rest on the bed. Tomorrow we can get you a corner set up. Go on, don’t be shy.”

 

“Invaders don’t SLEEP,” Zim spat.

 

“Sure hon but remember you’re not on Irk anymore,” Glim said.

 

Her words had barely reached his ears before Zim had completely passed out on the bed.

 

It was morning and Glim was showing Zim how to gather wood and make a fire with the tinder.

 

“Why can’t we just use lasers?!” he grumbled frustrated.

 

“Zim you’re hopeless,” she said, “how did you ever pass Invader training? I thought they taught all you new recruits stuff like this.”

 

“No!” he growled throwing the wood in irritation, “we had equipment and lasers and a whole BASE we weren’t just stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing arrrg! Grr! Raaargh!” and he thoroughly abused the air around him showing his marked displeasure.

 

“As glad as I am to have someone to talk to, you’re a real pain sometimes,” Glim said sighing.

 

Zim suddenly let out a small squeak of fear.

 

“What’s wrong?” Glim said whipping her head around.

 

Zim was facing away from her but she could still tell that he was trembling slightly.

 

“Zim…tell me!” she demanded fearfully.

 

When she looked over his shoulder it caused her to gasp.

 

“Your…digits!” she said, gently touching the strange distorted hands.

 

They had become long black and pointed claws.

 

“They’re bleeding,” Glim said nervously, “lets get some bandages. Ugh, oh that’s really grossing me out!” she clutched her hand over her mouth, “they came right through the skin!”

 

“YES!! AMAZING!!” screamed Zim sarcastically, “Get the bandages NOW! It hurts with the power of a terrible HURTING THING!”

 

They spent several hours wrapping around the wounds but ran into a lot of trouble because of the sharp nature of the claws. For once, Zim wasn’t saying much of anything, aside from small noises he made as the cloth was wrapped around the painful looking fissures on his skin.

 

“You kind of look like a Blorthien with hands like that,” Glim said laughing nervously, “luckily though you don’t seem crazy. Er…well crazier then you already are.”

 

She finished wrapping his hands and looked at her handy work. The bandages weren’t sticking well and some liquid was seeping out of the wounds.

 

“Well…to be honest that’s the best I can do. Are you in any pain?” she asked wincing.

 

“Yes, horrible terrible GUT WRENCHING agony but I’ll be fine! I am after all an Invade- AAGH ARRG OH SWEET IRK!!” Zim flailed on the ground while Glim tried really hard not to laugh.

 

“I’ve got some medication for that,” she said.

 

It was in the months that followed that Glim would point out each one of Zim’s strange transformations. Fear always came over her features when some new spike or ridge would suddenly appear across his face or the exposed parts of his body. He was also growing at a ridiculously rapid rate; which of course, delighted Zim to no end although he wished the strange flip-flop in his stomach that appeared when Glim was afraid would disappear. Invaders were supposed to like it when they inspired fear in people, other Irkens or not. But he couldn’t shake the strange feeling of camaraderie that they shared despite his best efforts; Zim constantly reminded himself that it was only because they were both stuck on the same wretched planet that he cared about her welfare at all. He almost believed it.

 

One night Glim was tending a small fire and roasting some strange Blorth animal in a pot for their barely palatable food. She was looking at the flames in such a way that they reflected in her dark red eyes and danced at the corner of her lashes. Zim thought for a moment that she was really quite a pleasant looking Irken female specimen.

 

“Zim,” she said startling him out of his observations, “you miss anybody?”

 

“Huh?” he said in a deadened tone, “Invader’s don’t have companions.”

 

“No I mean…well not like that. I’m talking about things other than friends.”

 

Zim blinked. He really didn’t know what Glim was talking about. Wait…he did spend an awful lot of time thinking about that Earthenoid Dib.

 

“This stinky human wormbaby on planet Earth used to ruin all of my beautiful plans,” Zim sighed wistfully, “I thought I’d be glad never having to deal with his stupid big-headed self! But…” he cocked his head to the side, “maybe I miss it. Kinda. The challenge...” He coughed nervously into his bandaged hand not quite sure what had come over himself.

 

“So what would you do if you had the chance to go back to Earth and see this uh…humanoid again?” Glim asked inquisitively.

 

“Ooo that Dib!” Zim hissed viciously, “I’d show him who the superior species is once and for all! And then I’d take him to my lab and then! I’d do….stuff! Oh the stuff I would do!” he wiggled his fingers dramatically.

 

Glim burst out laughing, “Well here’s hoping we both get off this wretched nasty planet and get to see this Earth of yours. If you’re lucky the assassin that killed the second in line to the Tallest will give you a hand conquering it!”

 

“I am ZIM! I don’t NEED help!” He squealed.

 

Glim laughed uproariously, “Sure Zim, whatever you say!”

 

Maybe a few years had passed, perhaps more; one couldn’t be sure since the planet was in a perpetual state of summer. Zim now had to duck out of the cave to get outside. His legs had bent and twisted themselves painfully into an odd insectile trajectory, his spikes and claws and fierce looking eyes made his visage that of a true monster but nothing mattered to him aside from the immense height his body had acquired. It had happened a little too quickly however, and he had been using a lot of injections garnered from abandoned ships to keep the pain and swelling of his muscles down. His brain felt a bit weird but he was handling them suitably well, according to Glim.

 

“Our pacs mediate just about everything, without them we're a bit...well, raw for lack of a better word. You're experiencing a lot of intense emotions for the first time,” Glim had reminded him, “it's probably nothing to worry about.”

 

Hate. Fear. Loneliness. These things were not something Invaders were used to dealing with on their long missions to other planets. Zim tried to stuff them down the way GIR used to shove tacos into his robotic mouth but it didn't always work. For some strange reason, he wanted to see earth again and fight the Dib-beast for the right to conquer the planet. It was just about the only thing he could think about with any enthusiasm.

 

On his worst days, the fast growth became so agonizing he wasn’t able to move. Glim had feared for his life on more then one occasion and had started looking for information on his strange condition. It was unlike anything she had seen before. He had no mirrors or reflective surfaces to stare into but he knew from her frantic descriptions that he was a true site to behold.

 

One day she had presented him with a vague answer, “You’ve got the throw back gene. I read about it in some history manuals on that last ship. You have the gene that belongs to that other half of Irken ancestors. I think we can use it to our advantage. You know, the older Irken race that your genetics come from was almost completely diluted but somehow you slipped through. The controller brains usually kill people like you but you survived! I’m so happy…that gene will give you amazing abilities, with them we can probably escape! You're going to be able to jump up to the next exile ship! Your legs are going to be incredibly strong! All we have to do is wait for you to stabilize.”

 

Her eyes had shone so excitedly at that last statement.

 

They could get off the stinking planet! The feelings Zim had felt then were indescribable, they could escape together and be free! Maybe Glim would come to Earth with him but even if she didn’t, he had an assassin as an ally and it was obvious by now that their loyalty was indisputable. Comrades were all right if they could benefit you in such a dramatic fashion, he had concluded. And he was _ZIM_ and ZIM always won!

 

“So what’ll you do when we finally get off this place?” she had asked, a shimmer in her large red eyes.

 

“Eh? Take over Earth,” Zim said nonchalantly.

 

“I figured. You’re obsessed with that planet and that Dib person you know?” she said, “in fact if you didn’t see him as an enemy I’d almost say you had a crush on him.”

 

Zim looked at her oddly, “crush? Well I suppose I would like to squish him until his innards become goo…yesss….” He tittered in his hissing voice.

 

“No no that’s not what I meant,” Glim said waving her hand exasperated, “you just don’t get it.”

 

“Get what?” he grumbled.

 

“Never mind,” she said smiling. She had been thinking about plans for Zim on her own terms and this Dib person was making her worry. But if Zim was in the dark about it…well, it didn’t bother her one bit.

 

They watched the fire for a while and then went to sleep on the same straw bed. Everything was quiet, their plan was working and Zim slept with a great feeling of contentment hitherto inexperienced in his miserable existence. He was almost…happy. Almost. But like so much Blorthien dirt slipping through his fingers, it was not to last.

 

It was a dreary and dark day that he crashed through the woods around their cave. There had been firewood to gather and plant life to mangle, all supplies for their potential immensely planned escape. Later today there would be a ship and he would enact their plans to capture it, everything as far as he was concerned was going well. He tramped through the brush with a great deal of confidence. Everything stepped out of his way, animals fled and shrieks and scurrying could be heard as the Blorthiens ran before he could even see them in the heather, everyone was terrified of him and it made him swell with satisfaction. He was Zim! The mightiest of Irken Invaders, taller then the tallest! Awesomely intimidating! Mind numbingly intelligent!

 

But he stopped dead in his tracks when he heard the strange sounds behind him. They were laughing in the distance, a cruel cold heartless sound. He hated it when the Blorthiens laughed, it usually meant they had slaughtered some other pathetic victim eschewed on the horrible planet. It reminded him of being chased, it made him feel scared. He hated being scared! Stupid emotions. His claws twitched nervously, this was no good. The sounds were far too close; he would get back to Glim and make sure everything was ok. A strange sensation came over him, his breath was moving faster and some instincts in the very basis of his spine took over and told him something very wrong had just happened. He was rushing and creeping through the forest madly, like a lithe and deadly insect scurrying on towards the inevitable sight that would burn itself into his mind forever.

 

There on the ground laid out face up, was Glim. Her eyes were wide open and she wasn’t breathing. He could smell the scent of death wafting towards his heightened olfactories, it was revolting and rank. Zim crept up to the corpse and looked down at her face; it was a horrible visage of terror and pain. A black tar like substance was covering her lower body, he knew what it was before further inspection; they had done the unspeakable to her. When he lifted up her back he realized she had almost been clawed in half by their frantic workings, the organs even fell out with a plop onto the cold dirt and he watched entranced as they quivered wetly on the ground.

 

It was like a switch had been suddenly turned on. His eyes sunk deeper back into his head and a dark and loathsome thing crawled onto his features. If any of the Blorthiens had witnessed this transformation, they would surely have warned their fellows and ran screaming with them into the night. But they didn't and as fires began to burn on the hillsides, Zim observed them quietly, claws clicking.

 

The Blorthiens strange rituals involved large orgies, fresh Irkens and a lot of blood. The Irkens that had been dropped off recently were cowering in a corner, already abused and mutilated to the point that they wished for death above all else. However, when they saw the hideous monster burst through the underbrush and claw one Blorthien in half, the less wounded took the time to scatter shrieking into the depths of the forest. However, Zim had little mercy for anyone Irken or otherwise and has his raking claws and hissing clenched teeth forced fear and death onto anything that came into his path. The wounded Irkens were dead along with every Blorthien that came near.

 

Something black and dark slithered into his vision, he had no control. He just wanted to taste death over and over. Loathsome vile destruction was welling up into his veins and burning into his twisted limbs like poisoned magma. His legs crackled and arms stretched further, the bones began to expose themselves from his flesh and harden, the spines grew bigger and sharpened into meaner points. He had transformed from being into beast and could hold no memories any longer. The rest of his slaughter was a blood soaked blur.

 

The sound of the exile ship came closer. The crew regretted having ever seen planet Blorth when Zim tore through their ranks like flimsy earth paper. It was soon after that with the fragile shreds of his mind barely hanging on that Zim went on a murderous rampage all the way to the heart of the Irken empire, transferring from stolen ship to stolen ship like a nightmare on pincer legs. After all, he knew the technology, he knew the transportation channels and he knew, most importantly, he desperately wanted revenge.

 

After literally blowing up a path all the way to the Tallest's ship, a communications line was finally opened. Zim felt good all of a sudden, he felt right. He felt like he had done what he was supposed to do.

 

“Zim! Listen to REASON!! We’ll give you anything you want! Anything at all!” Tallest Red said in desperation.

 

Almighty Tallest Purple was cowering behind a stack of shredded conduits, “Anything!” he emphasized in fear and desperation.

 

A glimmer of intelligence had entered Zim’s mangled brain when he recognized his former leaders. He could focus now with intense hatred on the very source of his misery.

 

Zim narrowed his eyes coldly, “Zim….WANTS NONE OF YOUR FILTHY LIES!!!!”

 

As he was about to disable the Armada further in a hail of laser fire, Almighty Tallest Red ran to the front of the view screen. He had remembered something…something really important that might just stop the insane ex-invader from ripping their heads out of their suits if he played his cards right. They'd never seen anything like this, the controller brains didn't know what to do. Purple didn't know what to do! It was an unmitigated disaster. Zim had to be stopped.

 

“ZIM WAIT!! What about.............Earth?!” Red pleaded.

 

They waited with baited breath along with the rest of the badly damaged Irken empire. Zim’s twisted visage stared back at them with his teeth bared and then, just barely for a moment, it changed to something pensive.

 

“Earth” he mumbled to himself.

 

It was like the final heavy fog had been lifted.

 

Red gasped for breath momentarily, “It was slated for destruction a week ago before you came. They’re probably starting now Zim, you can go on in and take the rest of it over yourself if you want! Please Zim, just stop destroying everything in sight!” begged Red.

 

“Eh?! Destruction?!” Zim said, rasping, “But I’ve got to go there to get…it’s really important! Arrrgh! Stupid TALLEST! I’ll forgo your destruction just this once but I expect some hefty favours when I return. The mighty Zim will not be pushed aside for lesser Invaders AGAIN!”

 

Purple nodded furiously while still deeply entrenched in his hiding spot as Red’s shoulders slumped in relief. The communication screen went static.

 

“Red, you’re a genius,” whimpered Purple.

 

Red slapped his hand to his forehead, “I’m just sorry I didn’t think of it before. He’s gone completely crazy. Like…Blorthien crazy,” they both shuddered, “it’s like he finally gained some horrible focus.”

 

They looked on towards the decimated armada and simultaneously cringed.

 

“Why don’t we just kill him now while he’s distracted?” asked Purple.

 

“Because,” said Red, “ I’m not sure if he can be killed by the fire power we’ve got left, Blorthien exo-skeletons are nothing to sneeze at and if we give him whatever he wants, he might actually listen to us for a change. You gotta admit,” he gestured to the horrible decimation on the screen, “he’s always had a knack for blowing things up.”

 

“Yeah,” said Purple, “but now he’s actually competent at it.”

 

“That’s what I mean,” nodded Red, “if we have something like that on our side…we might not have to worry about those uprisings among the Screwheads anymore.”

 

Purple mused, “that’s not a bad deal. We get him whatever no doubt ridiculous equipment his insane heart desires and then we put him to work. From a safe location very far away in case things go....poorly.”

 

“Yup,” said Red cheerfully, “now you! Communication operator number 57185 get me another soda!”

 

The communications operator stopped in mid stride, “YES MY TALLEST!” saluted and ran off.

 

“It sure is great being Tallest isn’t it,” said Red staring out at the destruction.

 

“Mmm-hmm,” Purple agreed, nodding his head.

 

To the Tallest surprise, Zim did not actually destroy the entire lesser armada obliterating Earth. He took one specific humanoid and gave orders that a certain few be picked up by the Genetic Federation for their uses. They were among the lucky millions of Earthenoids rescued before the Earth was unceremoniously blown up; whether Zim thought that rescuing his classmates and virtually dooming them and their descendants to perpetual slavery was worse then facing oblivion, was up for debate. None the less, it was these smaller demands the Irken Empire was thankful for. The bigger demands were much more difficult to take care of in a timely fashion.

 

The Irken vessel Zim had used was pitifully out of date for his needs, he requested an ancient almost forgotten technology in his new ship, which took months to complete. It was fully outfitted in every capacity with many rooms and the utmost highest technology available. It was with these advanced capabilities that he was able to fully restore his badly wounded human. As penance for wounding the human he had set out to capture in the first place (not that the armada would have known who Dib even was) he demanded compensation by allowing the freedom of a very vicious race of space arachnid. These creatures lived on a virtually inhospitable planet and had very small numbers made less by the fact that they were treated with great revision by the Empire. Zim had taken a great shine to their indestructible bodies and fascinating abilities, perhaps harbouring a kinship to their twisted forms and through his demands had garnered them a large number of humans, restored rights and fresh technology. They were indebted to him and he knew it, having chosen them specifically for their viciousness, skills and intelligence. He now had allies throughout space in the form of a most feared powerful creature, who now hailed him as a saviour that provided them the greatest capability in the universe. Before they had only been able to create one child every eight thousand years but now, with humans in their possession their numbers could be exponentially expanded. Zim was effectively worshipped as a modern incarnation of their ancient Gods.

 

With allies in hand he had settled in at the deepest edge of space to scheme about his next move. Things were so easy to him, so boring. But he had the Dib in the palm of his hand; weak, alone and virtually defenceless. Bitterness swelled in his heart, Dib had been frolicking out there in the world while he had suffered. He had to pay. And it was with that dark and pitiless thought that Zim awoke in his dark bedroom chamber with a smile on his face. He would gain the Dib’s trust and then snatch it away. Play games with his pitiful human feelings and harm the simple-minded creature’s heart until there would be no will left. The Dib would belong to him and him alone and he knew that a revenge like that would be the most delicious victory of all.

 

Forget conquering a minuscule planet; he would conquer the human Dib's boundless spirit and ceaselessly devour its contents until there was nothing left. With a cruel laugh, he gloated at his sure future victory.

 


End file.
